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02.10.905.M38
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POV of Agent Vector(Ghost)
"You were chosen because the others were not enough."
His voice remained calm, carefully measured. "What lies ahead is not a simple operation, nor a test of loyalty. It is a turning point in the history of the Terran Dominion. Every decision you make will carry consequences that extend far beyond anything you can fully comprehend."
He paused briefly. "The Dominion cannot afford mistakes. Neither can I. That is why this mission rests in your hands. I trust your judgment, your discipline, and your ability to do what must be done, even when the weight of that decision becomes unbearable."
Silence followed.
"Carry out your assignment, Agent Vector."Those words etched themselves into my mind.
I had been granted the highest honor a Dominion Ghost could receive: a maximum-level mission. Under normal circumstances, it would have been assigned to the best among us. But he now served as Regent of the Dominion. The responsibility fell to me.
My task was to replace a merchant. Not just any merchant. He belonged to an influential dynasty on Vejovium III, a world specialized in the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals. His family had fulfilled contracts in that sector for generations, and the individual I was to impersonate was one of their primary operators.
As a human being, he was a functional failure. Cowardly, resentful, authoritarian, ruled by base impulses. His personal preferences were… problematic. He displayed a marked inclination toward abhumans. It was not something I wished to embody, but the mission required a flawless substitution. No discrepancy could be detected.
Aboard the ship, I found everything of relevance: routes, active contracts, lists of worlds to be supplied, and purchase orders already signed. The only meaningful change was the crew. It had been almost entirely replaced by Royal Guard personnel, trained to pass as civilian workers and private security. The group of abhumans that had accompanied the original merchant was transferred for study. The scientists showed particular interest in the pattern: females with feline, canine, and chiropteran traits.
We resumed the itinerary without delay. Thanks to our curvature drive, we reached our destinations with an efficiency no conventional merchant vessel could match. We only entered the Warp in mapped zones; the rest of the time we traveled at velocities just below the speed of light. Once we left charted regions, the navigator became necessary to cross vast distances quickly through the immaterium.
The only reason the navigator remained alive was because the Lord Regent himself had subjected him to mental domination. Augmented by the overwhelming amplification of his psionic power through triple terrazine consumption, the control had proven capable of lasting years without further intervention. That was how we concealed our abnormal speed of travel. The navigator remembered nothing. For him, it had simply been another ordinary day.
Much of the journey still required passage through the immaterium. The sensation was strange. I felt the constant impression of being watched from every direction, but beyond that, it was tolerable.
We fulfilled every contract. Dozens of worlds were supplied with medicine, and all scheduled purchases were completed without incident. At the same time, I used every stop to recruit local populations, steadily reinforcing the crew. This allowed us to reduce the visible presence of the thousands of Royal Guards aboard, integrating them organically into the ship's structure.
The only true modification to the vessel was the engine. A false engineering section had been constructed; any inspection would find the original systems intact, though they served no real function beyond initiating Warp entry when required. Everything else was a hollow shell, designed solely to deceive. If discovered, we would immediately jump back into Warp space and return to Dominion territory.
The water and oxygen recycling systems were crude. The ship functioned as a mobile city, organized into rigid social strata. Access to heating, clean water, or hot water depended entirely on the importance of one's assigned work. It was an inflexible internal order, and it had to be maintained. Only the Royal Guard retained all trusted positions. They were the only ones to whom I could delegate without risk.
Only two members of my psi-ops team accompanied me. If Ghosts had not been in such short supply, I would have recommended using this mission to deploy covert operatives on every world along the route to the merchant's home planet. But every Ghost was needed elsewhere, reinforcing security while purges were carried out in other systems. There was no margin for wasted resources.
The journey was long. Excessively so. The monotony of space was broken only by vox exchanges with other ships or by stops to load cargo. During that time, I developed a functional understanding of Imperial pricing structures. I could have designed multiple trade routes capable of generating significant returns. However, the individual I had replaced was mediocre even within his own family. He squandered nearly all profits acquiring additional abhuman specimens, regardless of their absurd cost, along with aged amasec from the finest Imperial vineyards, ambrosia, and the highest-grade grox meat.
He lived like an emperor on his earnings and still never stood out. That mediocrity became, paradoxically, my greatest constraint. I could not optimize or correct too much without attracting suspicion. The idiot I had replaced had to remain one, at least in appearance, even if nothing of him remained behind his decisions.
Several months passed before we reached Vejovium III. By then, the ship carried nearly half a million workers. My only real diversion was scanning their minds for irregularities. The process yielded results. On two occasions, cultists infiltrated the recruits. One group served an entity similar to the one we had encountered on our mining world; the other belonged to a cult comparable to that of New Korhal, centered on the glorification of excess.
I eliminated them during the ship's dark cycle. The bodies were incinerated immediately. At the very least, I could state with absolute certainty that the vessel was clean.
Beyond that, structural problems began to accumulate. Although the ship had left Dominion shipyards in optimal condition, failures soon emerged: ruptured pipelines, collapsed oxygen recycling systems, water pumps ceasing to function. Complaints multiplied among the workers. Poor air quality, lack of hot water, temperatures dropping below tolerable levels in several sectors. The ship had no surplus energy to compensate.
Or, to be precise, I did have it. But using the cold-fission generators that powered the Dominion's curvature drive was not a viable option. Although the available output exceeded the declared consumption by a wide margin, any deviation would have raised unnecessary suspicion.
The complaints, therefore, remained unresolved. Rationing was implemented instead: limited heating schedules, controlled water distribution, partial solutions that kept the ship operational. It was exactly what this bastard would have done—though he likely would have sent security teams to break the faces of half the workers first. I recorded that such measures had been taken, noting that the security forces had been deployed to remind the rabble who ruled the ship.
Eventually, we reached Vejovium III, emerging from the immaterium near the coordinates designated by the navigator.
Up to that point, we had deceived everyone. In every starport where we docked, before every planetary governor I dealt with, I was Gideon Hale: a member of the Hale merchant dynasty, a minor branch of a secondary offshoot belonging to a larger trading house, itself merely a subdivision of an older and more powerful lineage, with direct familial ties to a Rogue Trader. An extensive and deliberately convoluted family structure.
Upon arrival at the planet's starport, the real work began. Countless containers of medicinal herbs, chemical compounds, and other primary materials destined for pharmaceutical production were unloaded. The Hale family owned multiple factories on the planet, all dedicated to the manufacture of medicine. I had to maintain the role. Act exactly as the original individual would have done: issue orders to subordinates, drink while the work was carried out, instruct someone to update the ledgers before departing for the family residence. Everything had been in order for some time, but the performance had to continue. The idiot had to remain an idiot.
The mansion was one of several family residences, located in the uppermost spheres of the hive. An absurd number of servants greeted me. That level of wealth never ceased to surprise me. Not even the Emperor lived surrounded by such excess. Monumental paintings, colossal works of art, furniture constructed from materials resembling enormous gemstones carved without restraint, and more domestic staff than any rational mind could justify or even manage.
I went directly to see the father of the man I had replaced. The relationship between them had always been strained. From the beginning. His birth was the result of a political marriage, and his father had never shown genuine interest in him beyond the benefits the union provided. After the mother's death—attributed to a poorly defined illness—the father remarried. From that alliance came another son, conceived as part of an agreement with a closely related branch of the same family, intended to merge fortunes and facilitate political advancement.
That second son was named heir. The firstborn was reduced to retaining his nominal position, nothing more. Since then, they barely spoke, and when they did, the exchange followed the same pattern: constant reproaches, accusations of wasting money on stupidity, and conduct that, according to the father, dishonored the Hale name—keeping abhuman lovers or gambling enormous sums.
I waited until I was finally authorized to see Gideon's father. When I passed through the doors, I found a man far older than the records and memories of the subject I had replaced suggested. The deterioration was unmistakable.
"Ah… Gideon. Looks like you were lucky. You arrived much earlier than I expected. Seems the Navigator did his job well," he said with a faint smile.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, imitating the reaction the real Gideon would have had to that strange, almost cordial tone.
"Yes. Here. Sign this. The tithe needs to be paid," I replied, placing the ledgers meant for the Imperial collectors in front of him.
"I trust you didn't skip something important just to go on holiday. These contracts mattered," he added, his voice soft, almost unconcerned.
I felt the temptation to read his mind, but a world of that status was unlikely to lack competent psykers. I could not risk it.
"No… well. You completed everything. I'm glad," he said after reviewing the records, a faint smile forming.
That was strange. No shouting. No reproaches. No humiliation. Nothing.
I slid the book back toward him, urging him to sign it already. He studied me for several seconds before finally marking his seal.
"We need to talk later, Gideon. I've obtained a gift for you. Go to your quarters," he ordered.
I maintained the façade. Took the ledger and withdrew without another word. The real Gideon rarely spoke to his father unless strictly necessary. If even he had detected nothing, I could state with confidence that the mission was progressing without fault.
All that remained was to continue operating. Channel every profit toward the Dominion. Fill the holds with humans to be sent to work in mines or on agri-worlds. Remain hidden beneath Gideon Hale's natural mediocrity. As long as no one expected anything from me, everything would function.
When I entered the room, I found the "gift."
A group of abhumans.
There were felinids: human females with feline traits—visible ears, claws, even patches of fur. Others had enormous eyes and bat-like ears; their unblinking stares were more unsettling than navigating the immaterium. And one more… the one closest to a human form. She stood nearly three meters tall, perhaps more, and was unnaturally thin.
Mutants. Aberrations against the purity of the Terran genome. I would not approach them under any circumstances.
But for Gideon Hale, that collection of horrors was, without question, the finest gift imaginable.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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